I'm a Big Heat Sissy

I am a heat sissy.

When I was a kid, family vacation usually meant a trip to visit relatives in Oklahoma. Most of our time was spent at my grandparents house in Hugo, where I learned how to ride a bike one summer. Hugo is in the extreme southeastern corner of the state, and its defining summertime characteristics are heat and humidity. Temps in the upper 90's, and humidity to match. And oh yeah, bugs. Fun bugs like chiggers, fire ants, ticks and mosquitoes. All this didn't matter that summer, as I applied my new-found bike riding skills.

During the day, I was able to borrow a bike from a kid that lived just down the street from my grandparents. Jamie Sutherland was a couple of years older than me, and during the summer he would work at his dad's auto wrecking yard outside of town, and he generously let me use his bike while he was "at work".

I vaguely remember that Jamie's bike was some sort of StingRay clone...certainly not a genuine Schwinn, maybe it was a Huffy or something like that. It had a cool sissy bar, a white banana seat, and a gold paint job. I would spend all day outside,riding around the block time and time again. My mom would come out and tell me to get in out of the heat, and I would go inside, maybe have some iced tea (or, as they say there- "ice tea") and get back on the bike as soon as I could. I didn't care that I was sweating like a pig, or that I might get a "heat stroke". All I cared about is riding the bike and exploring the dusty gravel streets of Hugo, Oklahoma. And so I rode.

Fast forward a few years. Soon after moving from Southern California to Washington, I discovered that my tolerance for warm weather had greatly decreased. Temps in the upper 70's seem hot, and 65' is "just right". If the temps are in the 80's, then I'm whining about the heat, and, if they reach the 90's, well, I'm a whimpering fool. My parents moved to the California high Desert a few years ago, and I am constantly amazed when they say that 105' is not hot. Of course, the humidity is generally in the teens. Oh, by the way...people who live in the High Desert can not use any word in normal conversation that includes more than three syllables. Maybe it has something to do with the heat affecting their brains somehow.


This weekend I was looking forward to riding, as the weather forecast was for a nice summer weekend. As it turned out, temperatures rose to the mid 90's, and the relative humidity was somewhere north of 60%. Sunday was even worse, as thunderstorms were building over the Cascade crest, and the humidity was rising even higher. The lightning was quite something, and eventually it rained (rain in Seattle! What!??). This morning at 6:00, it was 61' and 91% RH.

So, as a complete and total Heat Sissy, I didn't ride at all this weekend. I have all kinds of excuses-too hot, too humid, too whatever. But, the weekend did bring back a lot of memories of summers in Hugo, and when my enthusiam for riding was greater than whatever discomfort the weather might bring. Lest you think that everyone in the Pacific NorthWest is a sissy, check out the Seattle International Randonneurs' Cascade 1200, happening now.

So here I sit, comfortable with my HeatSissy status. You Southern Californians shouldn't be too smug, however. Let's see how you fare when the weather turns cold and wet!